1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a container holder of a liquid consuming apparatus detachably mounted with a liquid container having a pressurizing chamber into which a pressurization fluid are introduced and a liquid containing chamber in which liquids are contained.
2. Related Art
Exemplary liquid consuming apparatuses capable of ejecting liquid droplets from a liquid ejecting head include an ink jet printing apparatus mounted with an ink jet printing head for an image printing, a device mounted with a color material ejecting head used to manufacture a color filter such as liquid crystal display, a device mounted with an electrode material (conductive paste) ejecting head used to form an electrode such as an organic EL display or a field emission display (FED), a device mounted with a living-body organic matter ejecting head used to manufacture a bio chip, a device mounted with a sample ejecting head which is a precise pipette, and the like.
In particular, since the ink jet printing apparatus causes relatively small noise and can also form small dots with a high density in a printing, the ink jet printing apparatus has been recently used for the many printings including a color printing. As a type of supplying a liquid to the ink jet printing apparatus, there is a so-called cartridge type in which the liquid is supplied from a liquid container storing the liquid to the liquid consuming apparatus. The cartridge type is configured so that the liquid container is simply attached to or detached from the liquid consuming apparatus in order for a user to exchange the liquid container when the liquid contained in the liquid container are completely consumed.
In this type of liquid container, a circuit board mounted with a memory element (IC) for storing information on a ink type, a amount of residual liquid or the like may be disposed on an outer surface thereof. In this case, an apparatus terminal of the liquid consuming apparatus connected to a contact point of the circuit board is disposed in a container holder of the liquid consuming apparatus mounted with the liquid container. When the liquid container including such a circuit board is mounted in the container holder, it is necessary to reliably connect the contact point of the circuit board to the apparatus terminal of the liquid consuming apparatus. That is, it is necessary to connect the apparatus terminal to the contact point of the circuit board so as to be conductive.
Some liquid containers and container holders include, for example, a container fixation structure for releasably regulating a movement of the liquid container in a pulling direction of the liquid container in cooperation with an apparatus fixation structure formed in the container holder as a mechanism for firmly fixing the liquid container on a predetermined position of the container holder.
The container fixation structure includes a guide groove for releasably regulating the movement of the liquid container in a position opposite a insertion direction of the liquid container in cooperation with a locking pin of the apparatus fixation structure disposed in the container mounting portion when the liquid container is mounted in the container mounting portion against an urging force in the direction opposite the insertion direction.
When the liquid container is fixed on the container holder, the liquid container is inserted into the container mounting portion, further pushed against the urging force in the direction opposite the insertion direction by a slider member and a pressing force is released, the locking pin of the apparatus fixation structure is moved to a lock position of the guide groove and the liquid container is fixed.
In addition, when the liquid container is detached from the container holder, the container is pushed into the container mounting portion so that the locking pin is moved to a non-lock position of the guide groove. Accordingly, when the pressing force is released, the container is urged so as to be taken out in the direction opposite the insertion direction by the slider member.
Patent Document 1: JP-A-2005-88575
The known liquid container disclosed in Patent Document 1 realizes a reliable connection between the contact point of the circuit board and the contact point of the liquid consuming apparatus by disposing the circuit board in the vicinity of the apparatus fixation structure. Specifically, when substantially flat rectangular parallelepiped liquid containers are arranged in a direction in which a pair of flat largest surfaces are perpendicular to a vertical surface and arranged so that the largest surfaces are not overlapped vertically (hereinafter, referred to as “a vertically positioned”), the circuit board is disposed on a side surface and the apparatus fixation structure is disposed on a lower surface close to the side surface. That is, the circuit board and the container fixation structure are disposed on two surfaces which are near the outer surface of the container and are perpendicular to each other.
Recently, however, as the number of the liquid containers increases in order to improve printing quality, the liquid containers have been configured so as to be arranged lengthwise with high density.
However, the circuit board and the container fixation structure are disposed on the outer surfaces of the container that intersect each other. Accordingly, for example, when the known liquid containers are lengthwise arranged, for example, in this structure, gaps are normally interposed between the adjacent liquid containers in order to dispose the apparatus fixation structure. For this reason, the containers cannot be arranged with the high density.
Alternatively, when the apparatus fixation structure is separately positioned, positioning precision of the contact point of the circuit board is deteriorated. Accordingly, since the apparatus terminal and the contact point of the circuit board are easily detached, good electrical connection may not be obtained.
The liquid container disclosed in Patent Document 1 is an airtight type liquid container. The airtight type liquid container is formed in a flexible bag and the like having an airtight structure and designed to prevent a liquid from deteriorating due to air contact. In this way, since good quality of stored ink can be maintained for a long time, the airtight type liquid container is appropriate for a large-scale liquid container.
However, when the pressurization fluid are introduced into the pressurizing chamber from the outside in order to pressurize the flexible bag which is a liquid containing chamber, a pair of parallel largest surfaces of the liquid container are mainly expanded and deformed.
As described above, the circuit board is disposed in the side surface of the liquid container. Accordingly, when the liquid container is expanded and deformed, a position in which the apparatus terminal comes in contact with the contact point of the circuit board may be deviated, thereby resulting in contact failure. Moreover, the expansion and deformation of the liquid container may induce deviation of fixation location between the slots of the container holder and the liquid containers.
As a result, load may be applied to an engagement portion of the apparatus fixation structure and the container fixation structure, a partition wall of each slot, and the like. Consequently, since the locking pin, the guide groove, and the partition wall of each slot may be deformed, a more robust fixation mechanism is necessary, and thus manufacture cost may increase.